


time to take time

by katiemariie



Series: the world's a little brighter [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien Biology, F/M, Fluff, Hair Braiding, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiemariie/pseuds/katiemariie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a part-Cardassian child means that Julian can't share everything he'd like with his daughter, but that only makes their human bonding time more precious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	time to take time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hannah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah/gifts).



Julian squints down at Silara, lying in her bassinet, swaddled tightly in her first slumber outside the Holowomb.

“What's wrong?” Garak whispers from across the nursery.

“Nothing,” Julian whispers. “She just… She doesn't look like me.” He tilts his head to the side, taking his daughter in from a new angle. “No matter how I look at her, I can't seem to see myself in her face.”

Garak raises an eye ridge. “Are you suggesting my cheek swab had an indiscretion with another sample?”

Julian registers the comment, but doesn't respond, leaning in closer to Silara. “She's just so _grey_ and _scaly_.” He looks up quickly at Garak. “Not that there's anything wrong with grey and scaly. I simply assumed she would be a bit more… brown and smooth. I know I didn't have much information to go off of; she's the first human-Cardassian hybrid—”

“Cardassian-human hybrid,” Garak corrects, once again asserting his position in that common household debate.

“—that we know of, but considering the genetic similarities between humans and Bajorans, and how downright pink Ziyal was, I expected Silara to take after me slightly more in that regard.”

“She will. In time.” Garak picks up a rough-hewn rock—like a pumice stone, but _pointy_ —from Silara's dresser. “You know what this is?”

_A medieval torture device Cardassians inexplicably still use on their newborn children_ , Julian is rather tempted to say, but that argument has been fought and won long ago. “A neonatal de-scaler. Designed to help remove the extra layer of scales developed in utero to protect the fetus.”

Garak bows his head. “I wasn't entirely certain if we'd need one of these; Ziyal and the other Bajoran hybrids were born without protective scales.”

“As I'd imagine they would be. The shared blood vessels between Bajoran mother and child likely impeded the scales' development.”

“Possibly. I find perhaps more likely that the development of those scales is linked to the ovum contributor's DNA.” (Neither of them are particularly keen on phrasing Garak's genetic relationship to Silara as maternal.)

“Why do you say that?”

“When two Cardassians of different skin tones have a child, it's born covered in scales that resemble the ovum contributor’s. That fact of biology helped my mother conceal my parentage considerably, but eventually the scales shed to reveal Tain's influence on my complexion. By then, she had secured a decoy father of a suitable class.”

“So, you're saying that underneath all those scales, Silara has…”

“Browner, smoother skin more befitting of a Bashir.”

“My parents will be so pleased,” Julian says dryly.

“So you do plan on informing them of Silara's birth.”

Julian leans back in the rocking chair. “I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually.”

–

As Garak promised, Silara's skin reveals itself to be smooth and a dull brown, her Cardassian ridges and scales softened much like Ziyal's. The hair, however, is all human: thick, wavy, curling and expanding in the humidity of the city. Pretty soon, it will grow to the length where they'll actually have to do something with it beyond combing, but for now it hangs free, resting on Garak's chest as he and Silara bask in the midday sun.

She's warmed up to it considerably since the last of her fetal scales shed. Julian's working theory is that the sun's heat and the scale's irritation was too much for Silara to relax properly, which she now does with ease: stretching out on top of Garak, wiggling her fingers and toes, gripping Garak's tunic in her little fist before falling asleep.

Silara's happy. Garak's happy.

Julian is happy for them.

He realizes how important having this alone time must be for Garak and Silara. This is their special thing that no one else in the house does (or can even do without suffering terrible sunburn and possible heat stroke).

Yet.

Silara is his child as well. Shouldn't _he_ share something like this with her?

–

Pinning a hexagonal braid to his secretary's scalp, while a minor bureaucrat roughly parts his hair, Garak thinks not for the first time that this “men's camaraderie training” is some Northern continent foolishness. Garak will be the first to say that a new trend in men's hairstyles is long overdue on Cardassia Prime, but the hamfisted institutionalization of braiding circles by the government's new Cardassian resources department is extremely misguided in Garak's opinion. As the cultural critics (a new profession on post-revolution Cardassia) note, braiding circles are meant to forge links of interdependency—one cannot achieve such fashionable hair on one's own. Members of the government, however, are already interdependent and well aware of it. The multiple redundancies built into the new mode of government demand that one work with vastly different departments and political factions to achieve one's goals—no matter how warped those goals may become in the process of such cooperation. (Garak thinks dreamily back to the days when the Obsidian Order operated with absolute autonomy, never forced to consult the minister of waste management on matters far outside of her expertise. But then Garak feels a twinge of phantom pain where the wire was implanted, and his nostalgia disappears.)

If interdependence is the byword of the new Cardassia, government employees should braid their hair on their own time with people in classes different from their own. Garak shudders to imagine what the people think when they see the various ministers, ambassadors, and bureaucrats descend from their ivory tower with trendy, time-consuming hairstyles. Their tax credits at work.

Also—and this is entirely secondary to Garak's more ideological objections—Votor from the transit ministry has hands like baseball mitts that have absolutely no business being anywhere near Garak's hair.

A brief respite from Votor's manhandling comes in the form of a chirping comm on Garak's wrist. Ah, the household frequency. Nothing could make a more perfect excuse.

“Excuse me.” Garak extracts himself from the braiding circle. “This could be an emergency.” (Any actual household emergency would be sent on the state emergency frequency—the same as flash floods and earthquakes.)

Once in the hall, Garak taps his comm. “Garak here.”

“You know what your problem is?” It’s Jack. “You don’t talk to each other. No, no, you talk, you make words, but you don’t say anything. Nothing real. It’s always: ‘Hi, Garak. How was your day?’ ‘Fine, dear, how was yours?’ ‘Good.’ Nothing, nothing, nothing! I can understand it from you, but Julian? It just proves what I’ve been saying all along: they got to him too soon. He was socialized completely wrong. Can you imagine being raised in a world full of them?”

“I tremble at the very thought of it,” Garak deadpans. “Is there a particular reason for this call? Beyond the usual laments about Julian’s upbringing?”

“That’s where this all started! He’s unhappy, Garak. With you, with the baby. But he won’t say anything, so he makes noises. Little noises in the back of his throat. Little, tiny noises that he doesn’t think we can hear. In fact, I don’t think he knows he’s making them. But he’s making the noises, Garak, and we are hearing them. And, I swear, if he keeps this up—if you keep this up—”

Garak pinches the bridge of his nose. “Put Sarina on.”

Jack makes a sad, affronted little noise of his own before passing the comm over. “Sarina here.”

“Can you tell me what’s wrong with Julian?”

“I don’t know. How long do you have?” There’s an edge creeping into her voice—one Garak hasn’t heard since Dr. Parmak’s tinkering with Jack’s sleeping medication resulted in that disastrous month where the young man had absolutely no libido.

“Let’s start with the most immediate concern, shall we?”

“He’s whimpering at least once an hour with a projected rate of increase in frequency that will bring him to twice an hour by this time tomorrow. Jack and I have agreed that if Julian whimpers three times in an hour, we will lock him outside and allow him to fend for himself in the backyard.”

Garak rolls his eyes. “Put Patrick on.”

There’s some rustling at the other end and then: “Patrick here.”

“Be a dear and tell me what’s bothering Julian.”

“He feels excluded when you and Silara bask together alone. The feelings of exclusion create jealousy which creates shame from which he suffers in near-silence.”

“Not near enough, I’m told.”

“I didn’t want to say anything…”

“I know. I’ll resolve the matter when I return home this evening.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.”

–

As predicted, Julian is waiting for him at the front door when he comes home from work, having heard Garak’s car pull into the driveway from any room in the (incredibly well-insulated) house. Julian smiles and pecks Garak on the mouth—a typical greeting at the end of the work day; such a sentimental display has the thrill of rebellion in Tain’s house—in view of the closet, no less—as if the old man’s spirit lingers on like a dead king in one of those human dramas. (Tain’s presence is still felt in the manor, haunting every interaction Garak has with Silara. One of the two agreed upon tenets of Garak and Julian’s parenting philosophy is, “Think of what your father would do in this situation and then do the opposite of that.” The other tenet is to ask one’s self, “What would Sisko do?”)

“How was your day?” Julian asks.

“Fine.” Garak removes his coat, placing it on the rack. “With the notable exception of a mid-afternoon braiding circle.”

Julian winces. “Again?”

“Again. CR’s attempts to foist this trend on the bureaucracy seem to be ramping up with the change of the seasons; I’m beginning to feel that my hard-won right to freedom of self-expression is being infringed upon. I have half a mind to write to my elected representative.”

“You lived through four decades of state indoctrination and this is the straw that broke the camel’s back? Hair-braiding?”

“Well, if it were just me the hair-braiding lobby were targeting, I wouldn’t say a word about it. But now they’re coming after the children.”

“Are they now?”

“Oh, yes. Quite vociferously, actually. The minister of public health is due to announce her endorsement of braided hair for young children.” She isn’t, but Julian needn’t know that. “Something about parent-child bonding during the braiding process. Far beyond the purview of her position, if you ask—”

“That actually makes sense. Skin-on-skin contact, time alone, peaceful environment. All have been proven to enhance the parent-child bond in young children across numerous species.”

“Good to know. Especially since we’ll be forced to braid Silara’s hair lest we become social pariahs.”

“If we’ve made it this far without being cast out of society, I doubt our baby’s hairstyle will get us run out of town.”

“You say that now but fashion is more important than ever on our fair planet. And I’m afraid we met the limit of Cardassia’s newfound tolerance for eccentricity when we were enjoined and then created our hybrid progeny in a modified holosuite program. So, unless you want unflattering and glaringly obvious blind items about us to appear in the society pages, I had better begin braiding Silara’s hair.”

“You?”

“Yes, me. Why?”

“You wouldn’t know the first thing about doing her hair.” 

“And you would?”

“Yes! It’s my hair. She has my hair. Everyone says she has my hair.”

“Well, if it’s your hair, then you can braid it.”

“Fine. I will.” Julian strides triumphantly down the hall with the distinctive jaunt of a man who’s won an argument. Garak doesn’t have long to savor his victory before Julian stops in his tracks, shakes his head, and turns around. “Are you _manipulating_ me?”

Garak holds his hands up in front of him, a gesture of peace. “Purely for your own benefit, I assure you.”

“Did someone put you up to this?”

“I cannot name sources.”

“I bet it was Lauren. It was Lauren, wasn’t it?”

Garak pauses a breath. “Yes.”

–

By now, they’ve eased into a routine: Julian with a cup of raktajino, Silara with a holo-chapter book, both plopped down in front of a full-length mirror. 

“What are you doing in playgroup today?” Julian asks around a yawn.

“Arts and crafts,” Silara says—Kardasi sign language today; she’s clearly keen on getting back to her Cardassian playmates.

Julian runs a comb through her hair before parting it into ten sections. “Do you like arts and crafts?” he asks once his hands are free.

She shakes her head. “I’m bad at it.”

“Why do you say that?” he asks, switching back to spoken Standard as he begins braiding a section of Silara’s hair.

“I always use too much glue. I can’t cut straight.” Outside of signing, Silara’s motor planning is noticeably lacking.

“You’ve only just started. I’m sure you’ll be better at it no time.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. But since you were born, the Earth has only revolved around the sun four-point-four-seven times. Given your projected life expectancy, you have two hundred and fifty-six more revolutions to become a master artist. So you have plenty of time.”

Silara rubs her right heel back and forth on the carpet—any faster and she would be likely to get rug burn. “The other kids are the same age as me and they can do it.”

Julian stops braiding. “You don’t have to be the same as everyone else, okay? And you don’t have to be better than them either. No one’s good at everything.”

“Not even Uncle Jack?”

“Not even Uncle Jack.”

Silara relaxes against her father, her heel-rubbing slowing to a lazy, comforting pace. Julian resumes braiding her hair, grateful for the time.

**Author's Note:**

> Hannah had the idea of braided hair (a la [the dwarves](http://hqdesktop.net/wallpapers/l/1280x800/39/the_hobbit_braids_dori_fili_nori_ori_1280x800_38500.jpg) in The Hobbit films, especially [Dori](http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120107052831/lotr/images/8/89/Dori-markhadlow-p.jpg)) being A Thing in post-revolution Cardassia and wanted to see Julian braiding Silara's hair.


End file.
